St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1887-04-11

Easter. So, he SAID, this old word,
spreading as far from India as Iceland, and
reaching back before the Bible began, be-
comes eloquent with the memories of un-
counted millions who have seen a divine
presence in every dawn and offered a wor-
ship of gratitude and gladness at each new
rising of the sun. To-day in most of these
languages the old name of the goddess has
worn down into the mere name of the place
of the horizon where she appeared, has lost
its piety and poetry and become mere
point of the compass. But the poet can
not so much as speak that proSac word
East without recalling the day when East
was Easter too, and the dawn was divine
with the presence of a benefactresS robed in
gold and crimson. and rising to wake the
world and call mankind to their worship
and work. Such a joyous worship was re-
ligiOus, too, and even more so than the fear
which the church has sometimes taught
toward the Heavenly Father and the doc
trineS it has devised about him. A me-
dieral catechism taught that the sun turned
red IN setting because 1t was looking into
hell. But to read the wrath of God in the
rich sunset cOlOrS, or III the cate
chism or anywhere else, is not so
religious as to rejoice in the beauties of
nature When we look beneath superficial
names to feelings, we see that the worship
of the Creator of the morning is just as
sacred under the title Ushas or Aurora or
Easter. as under that of Jehovah. 1t is
even more pious to personify that power as
beautiful goddess bringing blessings than
as barbarous God burning his children.
Nor is it so religious now to kneel at any
altar in the feeling that we are better than
our brethren or holier than honest heather,
iC IN any ay.nc i'm MI .
and admiration for the beauty of the dawn
and the wonders of the light.
The preacher then went on to show in de-
tail how great these wonders are. Even to
our observation. sunrise transforms the
world, changes its darkness to day, its
gloom to glory its silence to music, its
death to life. But still greater are the won
derS of light which science has shown. lie
told the power of this lmpalpable light i'll
weaving the spring foliage, building the
forests, and even bending beams of iron and
massive structures of stone, so that the
great monuments at Bunker Hill and Wash
ington are swayed to an extent that can be
seen and make their bow in sun-worship
every day. He spoke of the wonders of
the light in photography, and detailed the
progress since Daguerre said the picture of
a bright object can be taken in three hours,
till now, when it can be done in one two
hundred and-fftieth part of second, and
when photography brings to light countless
stars that no telescope can SHOW. He said
this light coming so many millions of miles
by intinitesimal waves in a sea of ether too
thin to be even thought of, but still so true
and so powerful, furnishes new grounds for
faith in invisible things. 1t gives more
faith, too, in the invisible things of the hui
man spirit which has so learned the secrets
of light and subdued it to service. In light
is power, but mind more SO, and heart most
so of all. The dawn is divine, but man
diviner and love the divinest Of
His gifts. And can we not trust that the
infinite laws will provide for he longings
they have made? Light ushers in the day
with the splendor of the dawn, surrounds
the setting sun with glories of gold and
purple, and then makes the night still more
glorious with the sight OF millions more of
suns which the day had hidden. The power
which so sends light above us and love
within u.s. which opens the day of human
life with youthful joys. brighter than the
dawn, and ends it with hopes richer than
the sunset colors, can. also follow it with
revelations of a heaven higher than the
stars.